


Shameless (The Good Intentions Remix)

by Medie



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M, Remix, remix madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 10:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1602746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People change, emotions change, and she'll be damned before she hides from herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shameless (The Good Intentions Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [KatiaSwift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatiaSwift/pseuds/KatiaSwift) in the [remixmadness2014](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2014) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> No safe story! :) Fandoms: X-Men: First Class and Star Trek (any)
> 
>  
> 
> \--
> 
> Don't know why, but fell in love with the original story and just couldn't resist trying my hand at it.

Jack proposes. Beverly smiles when he gives her the book, looks at it and makes all the right noises, and she's saying yes before she really even thinks about it. It makes him smile wide with delight, but she's frozen. She kisses him, takes the ring, smiles and makes the right noises when the captain congratulates them and asks whether the marriage will be term or traditional. 

Beverly starts to say term, but Jack's answering traditional before she can even open her mouth and he looks so _happy_ that she can't even think of trying to correct him. 

She loves him, she does, but that's not the problem. Loving Jack has never been the problem. It's just that she never wanted this, not really. She's dreamed of it as much as anyone, but only in the vaguest of terms. The realities have never entered into it. She's always been happiest with her friends and her lovers; it had taken her months to realize what she felt for Jack went beyond good sex and greater laughs. 

"I'm not good with this," she confesses, one night, curled in his arms. She looks at him, trying to keep her voice light and happy, and finds the challenge isn't much challenge at all when he looks like that. "You sure you know what you're getting into?"

"Not a bit," Jack laughs, presses his lips to her shoulder, and runs his fingers along her side. She yelps, laughing, and almost misses what he says next. "We're explorers, Beverly, that's half the fun."

She lets him persuade her, falling back into his arms, convince her with every touch and kiss that this is forever. That this will work and that the doubts lurking in the back of her mind are the kind of jitters Nana teased her about. 

It works. The captain marries them and it's good. It's really good. She doesn't ever quiet the doubts, but she learns to ignore them and focus on the life they're building. 

That's when it all starts to go wrong. They're transferred to the Stargazer, commanded by Jean-Luc Picard, and it's not immediate, but it might as well be. Weeks into the new mission and she beams back to the ship with her landing party to find him waiting for a report.

Her heart turns over, her pulse is racing, and she's shocked to realize what she's feeling.

Beverly _understands_ , after that, what she's been missing all this time. She loves Jack, she does, but it's nothing like this. Never has been. Her attraction to Jean-Luc is a constant slow-burn beneath the skin. It sneaks up on her when she isn't expecting it, grabs hold of her gut, and it's all she can do not to seek him out. 

She tells herself it's to be expected. Every marriage hits spots like this and it's as much the new ship and new mission as it is anything else. She makes it all sound so very plausible and, yet, she knows that it isn't. It's difficult to think of anything but him. She loses track of how many times she means to call Jack's name and it's Jean-Luc that nearly crosses her lips instead. 

It's a relief to find out she's pregnant. The transfer to Starfleet Medical can't come fast enough. 

Lying is easier over subspace. Her secret gets easier to hide. Sometimes, for a precious few moments, she can even forget it herself. 

At least, until Jack calls and his stories from the Stargazer remind her that the voice she misses isn't his. He doesn't notice, of course, can't feel her slipping away with every passing day. She apologies to him a thousand times in her mind, torn between shame and joy at the family she and Wesley have become without him. Wesley loves his father, babbling at him on the screen, and Beverly won't deny him a second of Jack's time. She's happy to do it, in fact, eager for a reason to pretend it isn't Jean-Luc that she wants to see. 

She's Wesley's mother and Jack's wife. She chose this and, for now, she'll honor her promise. Even though she can feel the lies catching in her throat each time she presses fingers to the screen to promise a love she no longer feels. A fidelity she's already broken in spirit if not flesh. 

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, each time she ends a call, waiting until the screen's gone dark to say the words. 

She could hate herself and will if she lets this go on. She's in love with a man who isn't her husband and that can't last forever. Secrets have a way of eating the soul alive. She's never been one to hide and she isn't going to start now. 

Some day soon, Beverly decides, she'll tell Jack the truth. He deserves to know and she deserves to tell him. She's told enough lies for the sake of them all.

People change, emotions change, and she'll be damned before she hides from herself.


End file.
